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Wednesday, June 11, 2014

The Enrichment of Adversity

Adversity, difficulty, failure, stress are typically viewed by our culture as negative. If I take a tomato plant when it has just its first set of true leaves and put it outside in the Minnesota spring weather where it is exposed to the sun, wind and rain. We end up with this wonderful stocky plant that is almost bullet proof to the weather and wind.

In the same way, if our education system, creates a challenging environment for our students where they are caused to overcome failure, grow, and handle an appropriate amount of stress. Then we end of with a resilient, sturdy and nearly bullet proof citizen, who is ready to be a productive member of society.
I call this the "Enrichment of Adversity". Examples are:

Having chores or other after school work during the school year or summer work to earn money for college or another goal. During college this actually results in better grades as the student has to organize their time better.

Forgoing some favored activity over home work or an after school job, teaches delayed gratification or responsibility.

Pushing yourself to achieve a higher level of academic performance or mastery of a musical instrument or choral performance.

Learning the grammer of a subject before memorizing all the facts.

Saving for large goals such as college, cars and a home instead of borrowing to the max.

Learning to handle anger in a productive way.

Never quitting even when school or work or family or life gets difficult!